CBH TALKS (virtual): Booze, Cigarettes and Constitutional Dust-Ups: Canada's Quest for Interprovincial Free Trade
2023-09-27 14:00 - 15:00 (America/Toronto) | online
The Canadian Business History Association would like to invite you for a special virtual event on September 27 from 2-3PM (EST). Our guest speaker is Ryan Manucha, the author of Booze, Cigarettes, and Constitutional Dust-Ups: Canada’s Quest for Interprovincial Free Trade. The Talk will be hosted by our President, Joe Martin.
To sign up please click here or email jeremy.mosher@nbc.ca
Canada’s interprovincial trade barriers tell an engrossing story of our country’s struggle to pursue an enduring singleness, despite a staggering diversity in climate, topography, demography and economics. The tale of our economic union is woven into the nation’s industrial outputs – from turkeys and potash to margarine and duvets, and of course, booze. This talk traces the story of interprovincial trade to the present day, unearthing the intergenerational battles that pit national and local ambitions against one another, as well as the sacrifices and trade-offs that Canadians would have to make in order to liberalize internal trade.
The COVID pandemic reminded Canadians about the importance of internal trade. Fickle foreign trading partners, border restrictions, and ascendant nationalism across the globe invite Canadians to increasingly look to one another for enduring economic prosperity. This talk looks ahead at what is to come for Canadian interprovincial trade and offers recommendations from a broad study of the topic.
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Ryan Manucha is a leading scholar on interprovincial trade in Canada. He presently serves as an external advisor to the federal government. His work has appeared in several of Canada’s leading legal journals (Osgoode Hall Law Review, the Canadian Business Law Journal, Canadian Journal of Administrative Law, and Practice) and significant newspapers (The Globe and Mail, The Ottawa Sun and Maclean’s). He has appeared on TVO’s The Agenda with Steve Paikin and CBC Radio, among other outlets. He has also authored reports published by Canada’s leading think tanks (C.D. Howe Institute and the Macdonald Laurier Institute). In 2022 he was commissioned to conduct a policy review for the government of Alberta. Most recently, his interdisciplinary book on the topic was published by McGill-Queen’s University Press; the book won the 2022 Donner Prize for best in Canadian public policy and writing. He obtained his JD from Harvard Law School, where he was awarded the Frederick Sheldon Fellowship to pursue research on interprovincial trade. He obtained his BA in Economics, magna cum laude, from Yale University.

CBHA Talk: Professor Brian Gettler, "Unmaking the Made Beaver: Money and Monopoly in the Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Fur Trade"
2021-01-20 17:30 - 18:00
Professor Brian Gettler, “Unmaking the Made Beaver: Money and Monopoly in the Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Fur Trade”
Brian Gettler is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Toronto.
His several articles and book chapters focus on the political and socioeconomic history of colonialism in Quebec and Canada. Brian’s new book, Colonialism’s Currency: Money, State, and First Nations in Canada, 1820-1950, analyzes the distinct experiences of three First Nations alongside the monetary dimensions of British and Canadian Indian policy and corporate policy in the fur trade. Rather than focusing on the perhaps obvious ways in which wealth shaped politics, it concentrates on money as both a symbol around which discourses of appropriate behaviour were articulated and as a concrete tool in the governance of peoples and lands.
His current research explores public finance and Crown-First Nations fiscal relations as well as Indigenous participation in the credit economy of the St. Lawrence Valley, both in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Attendees will need to register to attend. Participants can attend the AGM and/or the CBHA/ACHA Talks presentation. All registered participants will be given login information on January 19th.

CBHA/ACHA Talks Presents Pandemics and Business (History): Lessons from the Past
2020-10-30 14:00 - 15:00
The 1918-20 influenza pandemic has been cited often as one of the few relatively recent events that is comparable to the current pandemic. Coming between the end of the Great War and the Roaring Twenties, the 1918-20 pandemic had a profound impact upon a generation of Canadians already scarred by the trauma of war. What lessons can we learn from this earlier episode that might provide clues as to how our current situation with COVID-19 may develop, not just in terms of the social and political response, but in its impact upon the economy and business?
Bringing medical, social and business history together, join us for a discussion with Professors Magda Fahrni of the Université du Québec à Montréal, Dimitry Anastakis from the University of Toronto and James Onusko from Northern Lakes College on what the pandemics of the past can tell us about how the economy and business are shaped by major health crises.
